Fruits, Not Roots

I have been messaged by two people recently who either stopped believing God’s prophets, lost faith in the truth of His Church, or just stopped believing in God entirely based on the behavior of past prophets and the more transparent Church history we now know about. I’m not going to try to resolve any of their specific concerns here, but something came to mind as I spoke to both of these people; something that I have seen as a recurring theme with possibly everyone in their situation.

Each individual (more than just those two, of course) who has expressed their frustration, doubt, or disbelief in the restored gospel because of Church history has unintentionally brought the following phrase to my mind:

Don’t get so focused on the roots of the church that you forget the fruits of the church.

I pondered to myself what I would say if the Spirit directed me to offer my thoughts to these people, even just to help them understand why I believe, if not help them rekindle the fire of their faith. Each point really boils down to that phrase: focus on the fruits, not the roots.

Here are three points that I might use as a reminder why it’s not worth giving up faith in the Lord’s Church, let alone the existence of God, because the way a tree was planted seems off to us. God planted it; it’s not up to us to tell Him how He should have done it. It’s our job just to receive the fruits with gratitude, faith and worship.

Each point is based on a question I have actually been asked or a reason I have been given by such people explaining why they no longer believe.

“There’s some things early Church leaders did that are really bad. Why can’t I judge the personal conduct of a man who claims to speak with God?”

Because we are commanded not to judge anyone, period, by the Son of God Himself. Even Church leaders. Only Christ can judge whether the conduct of others renders them unable to receive revelation for the world. When the Holy Ghost witnesses in the hearts of the listeners that modern day prophets are indeed the mouthpiece of the Lord, that’s all we should need. Judging their supposed actions isn’t just focusing too much on the roots—it’s tantamount to looking at them through a microscope, which is drastically outside of our rights of stewardship.

I like to think of witnesses from the Holy Ghost as Tad R. Callister summarizes this situation in a court room.

“Some years ago my father, who was an attorney, was trying a lawsuit.  For his authority, he cited only one case – an old California Supreme Court case, issued many years before. His opponent cited a number of lower court decisions of much more recent vintage. The judge finally said to my father: “Mr. Callister, don’t have have a more recent case than this?” My father looked at the judge and replied: “Your honor, may I remind you that when the Supreme Court speaks on a matter, it only needs to speak once.” The judge nodded with approval. He was reminded that the Supreme Court trumps all lower court decisions, however numerous or recent they may be.  So it is with God our Father – He only needs to speak once on the issue of morality, and that one declaration trumps all the opinions of the “lower courts,” whether uttered by psychologists, counselors, politicians, friends, parents, or would-be moralists of the day” (Tad R. Callister, “The Lord’s Standard of Morality,” BYU-Idaho Devotional, January 2013).

Not only do we not have the right to judge them, we don’t even have enough information and context to make such judgments about them or anyone else. As some have said, “God has the numbers” to everything and we just don’t. That’s all there is to it.

As Elder Holland said, “Except in the case of His only perfect Begotten Son, imperfect people are all God has ever had to work with. That must be terribly frustrating to Him, but He deals with it. So should we.” One read through Jacob 5 in the Book of Mormon illustrates this point further, especially verse 22. 

“But there are things we know now that prove that the Church withheld the whole truth about important details of Church history! What about the Article of Faith that says we believe in being honest?”

 

Did you know that there’s a higher principle than truth? Dr. John Lund said the following in his book, Without Offense: The Art of Giving and Receiving Criticism: “[T]here is a higher and nobler principle than truth: it is to edify.  The Lord has said, ‘and that which does not edify is not of God, and is darkness.’ (D&C: 50:23)” (pg. 35)

Note that the Lord did not put a qualifier on that last statement, which means that if the truth does not edify, it should be withheld. You wouldn’t fault the Lord for withholding the long list of ancient records that we still don’t have (i.e. the full Jaredite record, the names of the Three Nephites, the book of Lehi, etc.), including those of all the missing prophets mentioned in the Bible. That’s His prerogative, not ours. There are some truths the Lord deliberately withholds from us because it would fly so starkly in the face of everything we understand that it would only cause us spiritual damage and offense. As Joseph Smith said to a group of Saints, “Brethren, if I were to tell you all I know of the kingdom of God, I do know that you would rise up and kill me.” Regardless of Joseph’s actions and personal life, the truths the Holy Ghost taught through Him produced the most incredible and long-lasting change in the hearts of men that the world has ever known. It’s far more useful to focus on those fruits than on the semantics of personal sins (or rumors of such sins) of the mortals who God used to plant them.

The Lord even commanded Abraham to lie to Pharoah about who his wife really was. If you look at the Old Testament Institute Manual in the section about Genesis 12:10-20, you will see that in proper context, the situation was much different than it appears at face value.

Another thing to consider with this idea is what Brother Callister also said about what we might call the “razor’s edge” God walks.

“There are certain laws of the universe [justice and mercy] that are immutable, that are without beginning of days or end of years. They were not created by an intelligent being, nor are they the product of moral thought, rather they are eternal, co-existent realities with the intelligences of the universe. These laws are immutable in that they cannot be altered or modified in any form. They unchangeable from eternity to eternity. They are self-existing, self-perpetuating laws to which even God himself is subject.” (Tad R. Callister, The Infinite Atonement, 300)

This isn’t to say that God isn’t all-powerful, but that the reason He IS all-powerful is because He has mastered those laws. He knows what will and will not satisfy both of those laws. He knows when and how certain commandments should be applied, and when they will edify and when they will not. We simply do not know these things. You can read more about this idea here. Also, that concept becomes clearer the more you consider how many times the Lord surprises us with how effectively He can use weak, mortal efforts to accomplish greatness. (Remember how the Lord used the loaves and fishes in the New Testament?)

“I still find it hard to believe that this is God’s Church because if He is the same ‘yesterday, today and forever’ and doesn’t show a ‘shadow of changing’ why is the Church changing so much? It’s too hard to keep up with!”

 

You have to remember that the Church isn’t an end, it’s a means to an end. Referring back to the idea of balancing justice and mercy, God gives us commandments, yes, but those commandments are meant to serve certain edifying purposes at different times. That’s why He could command Nephi to kill Laban, and the Israelites to “utterly destroy” the people in their promised land so they could inherit it. In each case, all parties involved were more edified by a circumstantial command to take the life/lives of another. Yes, sometimes the Lord uses His more righteous children to end the life of others because it’s actually more merciful to release them from mortality so that they don’t heap up any more judgement on their own heads. 

Because the Church is simply a means to an end—namely, our exaltation—and because we are supposed to change more every day, it only makes sense that the church’s policies and programs continue to change to elevate our manner or worship and the way we live (which should be worshipful anyways). Once the ends are achieved, the means will become obsolete. When President Nelson said we’re running out of time, I felt quite strongly that it was a command from Heavenly Father to change faster than we think we can; to forgive and let go of anger, grudges and hurt more completely and quickly; to serve more willingly; to give more time than we think we have to the Lord and trust that He will magnify our efforts for the rest of it (again, fishes and loaves).

The world wants us to think that changing to become like God is contrary to our nature, but to quote Remy in the movie Ratatouille, “Change IS nature.” We are supposed to change so that we have “no more [desire] to do evil,” including, as we get closer to the Lord’s Second Coming, things that perhaps we don’t even know are evil yet.

In conclusion, believe me: I know those kinds of changes are more easily said than done. But like something I actually talked about in a recent podcast episode, the Lord has been trying to tell us for a long time now that exaltation and the changes required to attain that, even as monumental as they seem, are more possible than we can comprehend—and He would know. He planted the tree.

Just remember to look to the fruits of the Church more than the roots. The roots are there to make the growing of the fruit possible, but they are, like the Church itself, just a means to an end: our eternal happiness.

Penlight to the Sun

The original reason I started blogging was kind of selfish at first. I had given a talk on agency back in… 2013 I think? You know how it goes with talks — you often get more out of preparing it than perhaps the congregation gets out of your giving it. And that’s what happened for me, but I thought, “I don’t want this to stop. I need more of this influence from the Spirit.”

Obviously I couldn’t give a talk every week, so instead I just decided to write down whatever I felt inclined to dig into for my own spiritual well-being and put it out there for whoever cared to read it. After a while, it got to the point where I was writing more with a sincere desire to actually do some good for others: perhaps my words would brighten someone’s day, get people thinking about their own spiritual standing, or help them in finding ways to overcome major burdens.

My thoughts here veer back towards looking for… just… pure spirit food; a useful reminder for myself and perhaps a refresher or new perspective for others, and as I prayed to know which direction I should take for that purpose, a little voice in my head said, pure and simply, “talk about your Savior.” So this time my thoughts are based on this quote from Tad R. Callister’s book The Infinite Atonement.

“Those who have belittled the Savior’s sacrifice as no superhuman feat, because others have been so crucified and died so “nobly,” have forgotten the moments in the Garden. The physical pain of the cross alone, when compared to the accumulated pain of the Garden and the cross, was as a penlight to the sun. Perhaps the cross was chosen because the Savior wanted us to know he had endured man’s greatest form of inhumanity to man; but even then, such anguish was relatively insignificant when compared to the spiritual agony in the Garden, which was extended on the cross.” (The Infinite Atonement, p. 133)

A penlight to the sun! Wow!

I thought of that analogy and I realized, is not everything between us and our Savior as a penlight to the sun? Are not our actions, righteous desires, the Christlike love we feel for others, and our honest efforts to follow our Savior’s example but a penlight compared to the celestial “sun-like” brilliance of His merits and His love?

One beautiful irony behind this is that the scriptures teach that our mere penlight can become as a proverbial “sun” because of the Son Himself.

I could go on for hours about this idea, but here are three things about the Lord that fit this analogy really well and how they serve as a huge comfort and motivator for us....

1. His Love

 

This one probably seems obvious to most, but I believe that some of the more sacred experiences my wife and I (especially her) have had have given us an extra special understanding of just how overwhelmingly intense, unending, healing, and comforting His love really is. Obviously we are still nowhere anywhere close to understanding fully how powerful and pleasantly pervasive it is, but what we have felt, in dreams and other special experiences, have left us without mortal words to express the incredible, beautiful, lasting effect He has on us when we allow His love to play more of a role in our lives.

Faith becomes much easier for me to exercise the longer I dwell on how unquestionably and irrevocably unquenchable His love is — and taking decent time to just ponder and process things of God is a commandment, anyway (3 Nephi 17:3). The more we take time to even begin to wrap our heads and hearts around the things of God, the easier it becomes to put aside our fear and acknowledge that faith in and adherence to God is more important. We will understand and believe that there is no one more safe in whom to put your trust than the Lord Jesus Christ. 

2. His Judgement

Something I was actually just reminded of today through a disagreement that was mostly my fault is that while truth — especially absolute truth — matters, context and edification matter just as much. So much of the time we mortals spend bickering about semantics, who is right (as opposed to what is right), and fairness could be easily avoided if we would just take the time to consider all aspects of the issue at hand. Considering context, having patience to ponder, scrutinizing the track record and veracity of the source of our information, and, most importantly, revelation and the gift of the discernment (Elder Bednar gave a fantastic talk about that!) are all crucial in coming to the proper conclusion about anything.

Considering each of these factors, our perspective and ability to make fair, kind judgments compared to Jesus is also as a penlight to the sun. How long will we continue to cling to hurt feelings, refuse to forgive, and hold grudges before we believe Christ (different from believing in Christ) and trust that He needs to be the one to decide when and how to execute justice?

3. His Faith

 

This may seem a little strange to some because most of the time we time we talk about us exercising faith in Jesus Christ, but quoting from Tad R. Callister again: 

“In [Jesus’] moment of agony, he cried out, “my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” The Savior was facing his great trial [on the cross] with nothing to support him but his will and his faith. More faith was required of him than was ever exacted from any mortal. Mortals recognize their intellectual inferiority compared to God. In other words, they know they do not know all. They expect to have moments when faith is required. But here was a God whose knowledge reigned supreme, yet there was still a “why” – a gap between his cognitive powers and empirical senses. He had encountered a dark zone, an intellectual “out of bounds,” even for him. Perhaps he did not expect this. Perhaps he did not contemplate a total abandonment. Perhaps he did not comprehend in advance the totality of the aloneness he must endure. Perhaps his infinite mind knew and understood all that is possible to know in advance, but even this fell short of the hard-core reality that comes from actual experience.” (The Infinite Atonement, p. 113-114)

To me, His “sun” of faith to our “penlight” is one of the most comforting ideas because this incomprehensible amount of faith is placed in our potential! In His restored gospel, He teaches us that we can become as He is and He shows faith in our now-penlight faith, that it can turn into “sun” faith.

Considering the comparative magnitude of both of those things, it becomes staggeringly obvious how much more faith He has in us than we do in ourselves. How many times do we consider that the One who understands and sees our weaknesses and sins in a perfectly clear and glaringly painful lens of divine light still exercises and shows more faith in us and what we can become then we ever do? How often do we consider that He also shows that faith in those we perceive as most difficult to forgive, who do us wrong?

Whether it’s in love, judgement, faith, patience, kindness, or any number of other virtues, our Lord and Redeemer’s “sun” of influence can, if we let them, overwhelmingly overshadow any fears or hurt we feel in the trials of life, whether they are merely circumstantial or as the result of another’s actions. As with the actual sun, when we become distracted from or ignore His ever-pervading light, love and invitations to tune out our impure mortal impulses and embrace the sensation of the Spirit, we might as well be a dog endlessly running around in circles, mindlessly chasing our tails.

The only thing that’s ever worth our focus is the sun of His will and His love, ignoring all the meaningless penlights in the process.

Focus on The Solution

This one is going to take me a bit, but if you bear with my I promise I'll do my best to make it worth your while.

If you use facebook even once every few days, you know how it goes. You log on and maybe your eye goes immediately to the number of messages or notifications you have or the "on this day" however many years ago suggested post facebook gives you. From that point, if you even scroll for 3 or more posts down your news feed there's an... I would guess 80% chance you'll see something that either uses profanity, complains, has a racy or sarcastic joke or picture or it's a news or blog article or video that gives society yet another thing to be sad, annoyed or angry about something.

It's ridiculous and feeds the plague of constant nagging we all see (on the internet or otherwise) to react, react, react without thinking for two seconds. The loudest voices these days are saying "listen to my woes! Hear ye, hear ye, I have something negative to say and doth require everyone to listen to how I feel about it!" Someone always has something bad to say. By the end of each day - and I kid you not, this is not an exaggeration - there is always at least one person or page or something else on facebook that someone shares that goes through the following process.

1. Hide the post,
2. Possibly report it for advocating something immoral, dishonest or manipulative, fully expecting facebook's staff or algorithms to completely brush it off as no big deal
3. Click the three dot menu and select "Hide all from [insert name of third party page or person here]"

I have continued this process for well over a year now, partly because of how much I have been trying to weed out all the mind-numbing, time-wasting, stupid distractions people share, but also to eventually (hopefully) eliminate everything from my feed that is not edifying and good for my own spiritual health.

Now, I'm aware that the way I have started this seems a bit counter-intuitive to what I titled this entry, so I'll start to turn this around now.

I totally understand that burying our heads in the sand and turning a blind eye to people's suffering is wrong. However, we also need to understand that one of Satan's most effective weapons is to overwhelm us with negativity and bring to our attention as many reasons as he can to focus on problems we cannot solve on our own. I've deliberately and vigorously been working on how I respond to negativity, a frown on someone's face, a stranger with a bad attitude, a corrupt politician, or even someone with a valid point and good intentions but who still has nothing but negative to say (even in the name of humor) in the moment.

My number one impulse over the last year has increasingly been to find any reason or method I can to respond to those people constructively, focusing on a solution and addressing their concern but in a way that encourages positive thinking and love toward others.

Because as far as the devil is concerned, as long as we are not actively focused on doing good, he couldn't care less if we are involved in grievous sins of commission or omission.

My efforts have required me to change the kinds of comments I give attention to and the conversations online I choose to be a part of. As an example, a while back I used to find Matt Walsh a catalyst for constructive conversation and problem solving, but I don't pay attention to almost anything he says anymore. I already know how far away from the doctrine of Christ and reality itself most churches today are straying. I've heard quite enough of how celebrities, clergy, politicians or "that person in that viral video" are completely abandoning common sense and cherry-picking which parts of scripture they want to follow.

Even when I'm not online there are so many mind numbing, time wasting, and even straight up evil things I'm constantly trying to combat and the method is the same. Focus on the solution and be more aware of which things are truly edifying and which are not. I think I'm starting to get a little better at it, too. My wife and I have become better at recognizing when we are rationalizing by making excuses to allow certain unholy and impure sources of entertainment into our home. We both wanted to see what the new show Titan Games (with Dwayne Johnson) was all about, but when my wife rightfully pointed out that the way they dress the women is completely unnecessary and revealing, we decided to avoid it. I also noticed recently how many times the devil tries to make cheap shots by subtly sneaking horrible messages into good causes. There is a new Weight Watchers commercial that uses a catchy beat and tune, but the lyrics are horrific!

And baby, worship me
Worship me
On your knees
Patiently, quietly, faithfully, worship me

The solution? Turn our attention more frequently and vigorously to God, the One we should really be worshiping.

-Perhaps replace the impulse to mock those with contrasting political views behind their back and make contemptuous jokes about them with an impulse to see what you have in common with them, and if there is truly a necessity to address evil intentions and actions, do so in a way that seeks to understand their heart and perspective. Only when we truly understand others can we begin to show them love in a way that a) they will accept and appreciate and b) will cause a desire within them to change their hearts. Back in 1972, Elder Marvin J. Ashton recalled a fantastic example of this from the life of President Abraham Lincoln.

"President Abraham Lincoln was once criticized for his attitude toward his enemies. 'Why do you try to make friends of them?' asked an associate. 'You should try to destroy them.'
'Am I not destroying my enemies,' Lincoln gently replied, 'when I make them my friends?'"

-Rather than hold a grudge against someone, even when we are justified in our hurt feelings, lets try replacing the impulse to dwell on it and gossip about them with a desire to resolve our concerns like adults, candidly and peacefully; and if those who wrong us don't believe they've done something wrong or just aren't ready to make things right, let's not allow them to live in our heads rent free. One of my most deeply held beliefs about dealing with toxic people is as follows. "I do not care what you think about me. I just don't and I don't need to. However, I will always, always care how you feel." And I don't. I lost the energy to care about what people think of me a long time ago, but my desire to empathize with how people feel has only grown exponentially over the years.

-Instead of emphasizing over and over and over and over and over again the corruption of "Billy John Bob" over in yonder country, let's avoid fighting fire with fire and instead simply teach the good things we know to be true. To combat people's effort to try and destroy people's lives and families, let's take every opportunity to spread the divine value of the human soul and eternal family relationships and then exemplify those ideas in how we live and treat those around us.

_________________________

There are any more examples I could rattle off about how to respond to negativity in a way that is constructive, edifying and love. But if I did this article would be way too long to keep anyone's attention all the way through.

Let's talk about good and then go out and do good.

The Atonement Doesn't Do Anything?

Before the reader calls me out for being the biggest blasphemer of all time, just hear me out. I thought that title would catch your attention and there's a good reason I used it. It has to do with a recent talk by our prophet, President Russell M. Nelson, from April 2017 titled "Drawing the Power of Jesus Christ into Our Lives."

The foundation of my thoughts here come from the following section of his talk, but also draw upon other ideas found therein.

"There is no amorphous entity called “the Atonement” upon which we may call for succor, healing, forgiveness, or power. Jesus Christ is the source. Sacred terms such as Atonement and Resurrection describe what the Savior did, according to the Father’s plan, so that we may live with hope in this life and gain eternal life in the world to come. The Savior’s atoning sacrifice—the central act of all human history—is best understood and appreciated when we expressly and clearly connect it to Him."

The atonement was an action performed by Jesus Christ, our Savior, not a formless thing or power that can just be used ad libitum based solely on personal preference. One folly of modern English is that many of the common phrases we use, although universally understood by those fluent in it, are fundamentally flawed. Such is the case with the ideas that some pivotal moment changed our lives or that one fight back in elementary or high school branded us as permanent enemies with a peer. The reason this is completely inaccurate is because events aren't things. They are memories of the collective choices of any number of people and the effect those people allow those choices to have on them.

It's one thing for me to say "that was my worst camping experience ever" and quite another to say "that camping trip ruined that summer for me." The first one is merely a statement of my experience and perception of what happened. The second one is just stupid. The experience itself did not grow a head, arms, a torso, legs and feet, it's own will and then choose to make life difficult for me for the remainder of the summer. I chose to let my negative experience and the memory of it stay in my mind and therefore distract me from better things for that period of time.

The sad but true idea that "we learn from history that we do not learn from history" proves true when we consider our misguided human attachment to events themselves and how good or bad they are. In the vast majority of people, not events, who changed the world, those who have the power to do something about it focus so much on what happened that they either forget or willfully neglect any thought about why it happened. What choices were made by those responsible and what motives lead those responsible to such actions?

This needs to be the focus of our attention in regards to Christ's Atonement (see what I did there?). I once heard a woman who was not a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints make an observation about our church meetings that proves this point further. Sometimes when she heard us speak or sing about Christ's Atonement, she would whine about how depressing it was and that it was a bad idea to focus so much on someone's death. In one respect, she was correct. Focusing on death is a bad thing to do. But what she didn't realize was the reason we speak of what Jesus did for us. It's not out of sadness for His suffering, as sad as suffering is to be sure, but in reverence, respect and love for who He is and what His choice makes possible for us.

Really, that should be the premise of every discussion about His holy sacrifice for us, what His choice made possible.

• Because Jesus chose to pay for our sins by His own blood and suffering, we may receive His forgiveness for them if we repent.
• Because Jesus died and rose from the dead, He has the power to (and has promised us that we will) resurrect each and every mortal who ever lived.
• Because Jesus took upon Him the pain of every abuse, mistake, injury, heartache, illness, etc. that we experience through no fault of our own overcame them Himself, He can and does show us how do to the same when we are humble and in tune enough with the Holy Ghost to let Him.
• Because Jesus spent His life showing a perfect example of how to be happy with constant opposition, we now have the Holy Ghost and the scriptures to show us how He did that so we can do it, too.
• Because Jesus atoned for us and purchased our souls with His own, He can now exercise mercy and stand between us and justice, satisfying both of those laws. 
• Because He rose above all things and is one in love, power and purpose with the Father, He is now in a position to grant us power to overcome and make our own choices that will one day elevate us to His stature.

This is not meant to be an exhaustive list of course, but notice how each point lists the effects of His choices and the power that flows from Him because of those choices. 

The atonement didn't pay for our sins. He did because He performed it. 

The atonement doesn't save us from death. He does.

The atonement doesn't strengthen us in trial. He does.

The atonement doesn't console us in affliction, raise us from the dead, put efficacy into ordinances and covenants, give us the blessings of obedience, empower us to do better, inspire us, change our hearts or protect us from spiritual dangers.

Jesus Christ does all of that. He can because of what He did, who He is and always was, but that's the key. It's reason why we worship Him as our ever living, all loving Savior and Lord, our Advocate with the Father. It's because of what He did and who He is. Under the direction of the Father, He is the why behind all that is good in life and eternity.

Easter - The Bunny or the Beloved Son: Part 2

This is a followup to this entry

In the lobby of our apartment building and stores around our intersection, the seasonal decor is littered with bunnies and eggs in some form. There is even a poem by the elevator that talks about the easter bunny and leaving eggs all around. As great as it may seem to some people and to kids, it has only caused me to mourn for them because a) focusing on that is completely irrational (bunnies don't lay eggs) and it has absolutely no effective connection to the real reason for the holiday and b) they have played right into the devils trap to let yet another tool of Satan distract them from what is truly important.

Now, I don't want to give such a tool of the adversary any more attention than it deserves so I'm going to move on to the point of this post, to talk about the true significance of Easter (notice how I capitalized it that time because the "easter" bunny has nothing to do with the holiday).

Reading Matt Walsh's post today wishing everyone a blessed Palm Sunday and some of this blog, I was reminded of how much we disregard the true import of Easter and my efforts here are meant to hopefully wake some people up to where our hearts and minds should be this week and coming weekend.

I want to address the most important part of the role and mission of Jesus Christ from an angle that many have, perhaps, not considered. What are the two main effects of the fall of man overcome by Jesus' atonement? Sin and death. Which did He confront first? Sin. Why?

Here is where I begin a bit of a deeper analysis. Lets first remember the conditions of Salvation. When considering salvation from death, the scriptures clearly teach that such is a free gift. We have to do absolutely nothing to rise from the dead. He covered that on His own because - why? Because the fact of death isn't something we did, have or ever could bring upon ourselves. Death was brought into the world by Adam (1 Cor 15:22 - "As in Adam all die..."). Therefore nothing any human since him has ever done could possibly warrant their death, making it, therefore, merely a natural part of the effects of the fall. No one deserves to die. So, naturally, receiving a perfect body via resurrection is a free gift to all.

Salvation from sin is a different matter entirely because every sin we commit is entirely our fault. In order to be saved from sin we must repent. Just a side here thought about repentance for clarification, since, as King Benjamin taught in the Book of Mormon, "the natural man is an enemy to God." I got this from John Pontius, the author of The Triumph of Zion. "Repentance is not limited to refusing to choose evil. It is also choosing to embrace godliness and to be Christlike in dispensing grace to others. It is, quite literally, to repent of the human condition." We are saved from the effects of sin forever provided we repent and align our minds, hearts and therefore our actions with Jesus Christ.

Now, it makes sense to me that the reason He would confront sin and weakness first is two fold. First, if He had overcome death first, as perfected, resurrected body is not subject to physical pain and, therefore, cannot suffer the effects of the fall that must be paid for to redeem mankind. Second, it's always better to get the hardest part of anything out of the way first.

This leads into my newly realized reason for making a much bigger deal out of Easter and completely ignoring the evil distractions the devil uses to take out attention away from our Savior. What if Jesus had suffered for our sins but not gained the power to raise us all from the dead? What would happen? Well, death would obviously be irreversible. That would make eternal families impossible and our bodies would be destroyed forever, but there's an even worse effect. If Christ had not gained victory over death for all of us, there would have been no point in overcoming sin for us in the first place. Why did He need to overcome sin for us? Because no unclean thing can (or will want to) dwell in the presence of God and the original plan was for us all to return to Him and become like Him. If Christ had not risen from the dead, even if we had become cleansed from sin through repentance, it would have been pointless. What good is being clean and learning to use our bodies to live like God if we can't even use said bodies after our testing period (mortality) is over? As Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf said, "...the grace of God does not merely restore us to our previous innocent state. If salvation means only erasing our mistakes and sins, then salvation—as wonderful as it is—does not fulfill the Father’s aspirations for us. His aim is much higher: He wants His sons and daughters to become like Him."

Without a body, spiritually clean or not, we would actually be in miserable limbo forever. Going from the joys of having a body and using it properly to being stuck without one forever would make cleanliness and innocence pointless. It would be a lifetime of experience and effort and repentance and suffering and changing for nothing.  As one speaker pointed out in (I think) a recent General Conference (#LDSConf), we aren't meant to go backward (to innocence) or even just forward (cleansing), but upward as well (godliness) and resurrection is the only way to do that once we're freed from sin.

My invitation to all who read this is to ignore everything the rest of the world tries to make Easter about and focus on the original purpose of the holiday, to celebrate and rejoice in the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ as the means for us to become more than clean - perfect and perfected. To have eternal joy and peace, to "return to His presence proven, pure, and sealed" as His forever. [Sister Elaine Dalton, Annual Women's Conference, 27 April 2012.]

Please ignore and even try to pull other's attention away from the eggs and the bunny and toward our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, this Easter week. How disrespectful and blasphemous it is to make Easter about something that draws our attention away from Him.

1. As the Hymn says:
"He is risen! He is risen!
Tell it out with joyful voice.
He has burst his three days’ prison;
Let the whole wide earth rejoice.
Death is conquered; man is free.
Christ has won the victory.

2. Come with high and holy hymning;
Chant our Lord’s triumphant lay.
Not one darksome cloud is dimming
Yonder glorious morning ray,
Breaking o’er the purple east,
Symbol of our Easter feast.

3. He is risen! He is risen!
He hath opened heaven’s gate.
We are free from sin’s dark prison,
Risen to a holier state.
And a brighter Easter beam
On our longing eyes shall stream."